April 12, 2008

Celebrate National Train Day Saturday, May 10th!

If you're like me, you remember the joys and wonders of taking a train trip. For people in my parent's generation, it was THE way to travel. Hundreds of passenger trains rolled through the Twin Cities each day, bound for Duluth, Winnipeg, the Dakotas, Omaha, Chicago, and Iowa...now, there is the lone Empire Builder, from Chicago to the west coast once a day in each direction. Efforts are underway to reinstate a train to Duluth (which ceased in 1985), and a high-speed train to Chicago.

The National Association of Rail Passengers and Amtrak will join together for National Train Day, to be held at train stations across the country. The event is designed to highlight the growing popularity of train riding, its environmental benefits, and to emphasize the need for rebuilding a strong passenger train network. Why May 10th? That day commemorates 139th anniversary of the laying in 1869 of the Golden Spike at Promontory Summit, Utah, the final link in America’s first transcontinental railroad.

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Barbara DaCosta—Writer & Author

Barbara DaCosta writes for children and adults alike. Her children's picture book debut is Nighttime Ninja,illustrated by Caldecott Award-winning artist Ed Young (Little, Brown 2012) .Her debut as a mystery writer came with the short story "Cabin 6" in the anthology Resort to Murder, edited by Minnesota Crime Wave. Meanwhile, she's putting the finishing touches on her novel Death by the Depot—the tale of a murder, the search for a missing man, and the uncovering of a nest of crime at a nursing home—features Thea Franco, a hardworking, overly curious, detail-oriented researcher with a stable of quirky clients---divas, dealers, teachers, historians, waitresses, and lawyers. Sometimes, though, Thea finds she’s taken on way more than she can handle….

• By the way, DaCosta rhymes with "the coast-ah," and is spelled DaCosta (i.e., not Da Costa, Dacosta, or DeCosta).• You can reach Barbara at barbaradacostaauthor at gmail dot com (substitute symbols).

• Your patronage of independent bookstores means you'll get diversity of book choices, highly knowledgeable staff, help the environment, and support your local community and local economy. See the American Booksellers Association website for more compelling facts.